


This Path We Follow

by shadows_of_1832 (SaoirseVictoire)



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, royai au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaoirseVictoire/pseuds/shadows_of_1832
Summary: “You didn’t have to follow me, I would’ve rather you didn’t,” she says when they were studying in his quarters. “You don’t have others depending on you.”“I told your father I’d look out for you on his deathbed; that isn’t changing,” he replies, turning the page in his notes. “While I didn’t think it would lead to this, I am keeping my word.”“You’re an idiot for doing so."
Relationships: Enjolras/Éponine Thénardier, Jean Prouvaire/Azelma Thénardier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	This Path We Follow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearaBribage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearaBribage/gifts).



> From the prompt: "It's all right to be angry."
> 
> Happy belated birthday! I hope this meets your expectations...

“Sir, there’s a call from Lieutenant Colonel Prouvaire on the other line. He says it’s urgent.”

“Send him through,” Enjolras replies with breath, head resting on his hand as he goes through another stack of paperwork, the windows dark behind him. He hears the receptionist switch the call over with a small beep. "Everything all right, Prouvaire?"

Silence. Then, a ragged breath.

“Prouvaire? Prouvaire, are you there?” He turns and glances at the clock, to see the small hand on the 9.

Another ragged breath. A wheeze.

“Where are you, Prouvaire?” he asks, grabbing his coat with one hand and holding the phone with the other. “I’m coming; tell me where you are.”

A wavering, ragged breath.

“Prouvaire!”

A click, and the line goes dead.

_Tick, tock, tick, tock._

Thenardier is not on top of him in regards to which paperwork of his needs prioritizing. She places the files and documents on the desk, then returns to her own.

Courfeyrac walks in, bandages wrapped around his right hand. He tries to write with his left, the handwriting resembling that of a young child’s. Suggestions are made to take some time for the injury to heal, but he refuses.

Combeferre flips through one of the documents on his desk, then starts right back over. Some pages he’ll stare at for ten minutes before turning.

Feuilly holds a pen in his hand, but writes nor draws anything. The only ink on his paperwork is what’s printed on them.

Bahorel looks to the clock above Feuilly’s head, a broken pencil in his left hand. There’s a tightness in his right fist, but then it relaxes. A couple minutes pass, same thing.

Enjolras, meanwhile, cannot remove his eyes from the phone, the mug of tea Thenardier had prepped for him to calm his nerves that morning having gone cold beside it.

If only he had hurried, if only he had been there! Prouvaire might have had a chance!

That’s what he tells himself, anyway.

Prouvaire was found in a telephone booth blocks away from Eastern Command, in a pool of crimson, a bullet at close range. There were also scratches upon his forehead and shoulder, as if someone had attempted to stab him.

Enjolras had seen the mess of the library, tables upturned, shelves knocked over, papers scattered. Prouvaire had fought, with the intensity of someone who despite his size could be powerful and deadly when underestimated. He had also seen the droplets of blood on the marble floor and the crimson streaks on the white hallway walls. Reports had it Prouvaire had almost dialed one of the free phones in the building, but stopped and went outside instead.

But why not come to him? He was just upstairs; Prouvaire knew that, he called his office phone! It couldn’t be a matter of trust, because he wouldn’t have called him if it was something Prouvaire didn’t think he could be trusted with.

Was it a matter of safety, perhaps? That whoever was after Prouvaire, would come after him as well, and the younger man didn’t want to risk putting one of his superiors and friends in danger?

He wants to think he could have protected himself, if the situation came to it, but Prouvaire wouldn’t knowingly put him in harm’s way.

And why go after Prouvaire? What information did he possess, for someone to go after him? Enjolras couldn’t think anyone would be offended by anything Prouvaire did, if it was a personal matter.

Enjolras raises his head at an agonized cry and a thud. The clock above Feuilly is gone, shattered at Bahorel’s feet.

Thenardier waits for Enjolras outside his apartment door the morning of the funeral, her mind still reeling from the shock of reality.

Prouvaire wasn’t much older than her, and yet to have his life cut short as it did…A gentle, passionate soul. What sins had he committed to earn him such a fate?

But she knows those sins, those demons. There’s hardly ever a night where she doesn’t see ruby eyes staring at her through her scope, realizing their fate seconds before she pulls the trigger. She knows they never saw her, the distance too far, but they might as well have, countless souls whose living days she put to rest for the sake of following orders. And for Enjolras’.

If it wasn’t for her, he would not have survived Ishval. If it wasn’t for him, she would have never left.

“I could have driven myself, Lieutenant,” he tells her, his coat draped over his arm and cap in hand as they walk down the stairs of his building.

“I know, sir,” she replies.

“If you’re worried about me—”

“We all are worried about one another. At least, shouldn’t we be?” Thenardier asks when they reach the bottom of the stairs. “Perhaps one of us could be next, we don’t know.”

“We’re safe, for now,” he replies. His eyes flicker around their surroundings. “Until the Ishvalen is caught, the only one in any danger is me.”

“Don’t be reckless, sir.”

The corner of his lip upturns for a moment. He opens the driver side door for her before he walks over to the passenger side. He waits until she starts driving. “Prouvaire’s death has nothing to do with any of that.”

“You don’t mean revenge?”

“He figured out something, and whatever it was got him killed.”

“You’re sure of it?”

“He avoided the use of the military phones to prevent it being connected to me, nor to he come upstairs because he knew during his attack, he would be putting me in danger,” he explains. “It’s the only logical reason I can think of.”

“You could be reading deeper into his actions than you need to be,” she says with empathy.

A part of her wants to think he’s drawing and connecting dots where they don’t go, but she does believe him. She had no argument for Prouvaire’s actions in those final moments, and knows Enjolras won’t let up with the guilt he feels for their friend’s death until he finds out exactly what it was and why.

And if she isn’t careful, it will drive him mad.

They are the last ones standing at the grave.

A couple of hours have passed since the ceremony, and she stands behind Enjolras as he stares at the gravestone beneath a cloudless blue sky.

Guilt is eating away at him. The “I should have been there,” the “he did not want to put me in danger,” and the “what did he know?” attacking him from all sides; she doesn’t need to see his face to know that.

The weight of Ishval weighs heavy enough on their shoulders, and each blow on them afterwards has just been another feather to the burden. How many more before they collapse beneath the weight?

How did Prouvaire come to terms with it, go to war, assist with a genocide, then come home and live, seemingly as if such a time didn’t exist?

“ _He doesn’t talk about it_ ,” her sister had said once. “ _He writes about what happened, and while I’m aware of where he keeps them all, I dare not touch them. I don’t think he wants me to know, the same way you don’t. Even so, I know it upsets him, and I’ve learned the difference between when he’s bothered by daily things and when it’s the war_.”

“ _How?_ ” she replied, holding a mug of tea between her hands.

“ _Because when it’s the war, he’s too scared to let go_.”

The path she and Enjolras had decided themselves upon, was that their way of coming to terms with it?

But such a path is what is keeping her alive. The end goal, to right the wrongs, even at the cost of their lives, is the only thing that is keeping her from taking a piece from her collection and finishing it all.

Is it vain to live, only to die?

And Enjolras, if he falls, the path is lost, regardless of if it’s her hand or someone else’s.

She wonders, at times, if he is as set on this goal as she is. They have admitted their wrongs, aware of the choices needed to correct it, but he has asked her some time before if the right answer to bloodshed was more bloodshed. There is the agreement of change, an agreement there’s consequences for what they’ve done, but it’s what those consequences are that’s the gray line.

There is a chance they could make amends through words and compromises and actions, but will that be enough to heal? Will that be enough for them to make peace for what they’ve done? Because there is no reversing their crimes.

And will she blame him, if the option the live is there? Will she stay if it is?

She wishes she could answer for herself.

“This isn’t right,” he murmurs. “He shouldn’t be here.”

The “it should be me” goes unspoken.

He takes a wavering breath. “We should be leaving, Lieutenant. It’ll be raining soon.”

She looks up, eyebrows furrowed. “But there’s no—”

He turns towards her, eyes red and swollen, yet no tears streak his face.

She nods in understanding. “Let’s go then, sir.”

Enjolras offers his bed for her to sleep on the night after the funeral, where he’ll take the couch, but as stubborn as ever, she insists he sleeps in his own bed, and that a couch is not the worst thing she’s slept on. He knows that truth; the cots in the desert, while preferable to the ground, whether sand or rock, were hardly better substitutes.

But growing up, he knows she had worse, had seen it during his alchemy training days. Himself, working hard for an incompetent teacher, and Thenardier and her siblings picking up for their parents’ slack.

It still surprises him how her father was obsessed with greed, yet never exploited the flame technique he developed and told no one, not even Enjolras, about it. Apparently despite his abusive personality, he still maintained some morals.

Once both of her parents were gone, he and Thenardier made their own choices.

_“I’m doing this for my family,” she says, holding her enlistment papers. “They should be focused on school, and I can’t let them go to the streets. The pay…it’s all right, just enough—”_

_“Let me help you,” he replies, knowing the documents were already signed and it was too late. “I can spare it, really.”_

_She shakes her head. “You know I don’t like charity.”_

_“Then consider it a gift.”_

_“I can’t accept it.”_

_He takes a deep breath, her fingers running through his hair. “You will be the death of me one day, Eponine.”_

He hadn’t wanted this sort of life for her, still didn’t. The bruises, the wounds, the psychological torture, that was supposed to be done the instant her father died. All the pain she took on to protect her siblings, she survived it, it was over.

Then she went ahead and signed her name on the damn line.

He couldn’t let her go alone. It was foolishness. If she had just let him help, with the money he had been getting from tutoring and that from his family, she wouldn’t have had to sign her life away like that.

And so, he did the same, took the State Alchemist examination, and to the academy he went.

And this was before he knew burden that was etched into her back, and that is where he curses everything he knows.

There were times when their paths crossed at the academy, interestingly enough, and moments of peace where they could think to the past, pretend they really hadn’t done what they did.

_“You didn’t have to follow me, I would’ve rather you didn’t,” she says when they were studying in his quarters. “You don’t have others depending on you.”_

_“I told your father I’d look out for you on his deathbed; that isn’t changing,” he replies, turning the page in his notes. “While I didn’t think it would lead to this, I am keeping my word.”_

_“You’re an idiot for doing so. You’ll be miserable, and you hate what this institution stands for; you’d be better suited fighting from the outside.” She glances out the window, nothing but a dark sky above. “We both know what we’re going to do. We’ll both be sent south.”_

_He nods, closing his book. “I know.”_

_A pause._

_“I made promises to my father, too,” she murmurs, getting to her feet. She doesn’t meet his eyes when she asks, “Can I trust you with my back?”_

_His eyebrows furrow. “I thought you already did.”_

_“I mean in the physical sense,” she says, grabbing ahold of his wrist gently, pulling him with her as they step away from the table and to the center of the room._

_His mouth runs dry, but he offers no resistance as she pulls him close._

_“Can I trust you with my back?” she repeats, her eyes pleading._

_“Have I ever given you a reason not to?”_

_She smiles a bit at that, releases his wrist, then takes a few steps away, turning her back to him._

_He watches her, confused, trying to piece together what she all means by this. Was she unbuttoning her shirt?_

_Heat fills his cheeks at the thought, and he turns away for a sense of decency._

_“Eponine, please put your shirt back on.”_

_“You can turn around, if that’s what’s you’re doing,” she says, sounding a bit annoyed._

_“Are you decent?”_

_“My front’s covered.”_

_“That is not what I meant,” he replies, trying not to sound uncomfortable. Surely she wouldn’t be thinking anything romantic, would she? Because that isn’t anything he wants from her. At least, that he’ll admit to. He feels a tug on his wrist, and on reflex, uses his free hand to cover his eyes._

_She takes a deep breath. “I’m trusting you with my back. Now, I am going to turn around, shield myself, and you’re going to take your hand off your eyes. Please. I don’t want this to myself anymore.”_

_“Alright.”_

_He counts to three after she removes her grip, and removes his hand, revealing to him the inked expanse of her back._

_He opens his mouth to respond, but finds no words._

_“My father didn’t trust enough to keep his research on paper,” she says, staring at the floor. “But he knew I don’t trust easily, and decided I was the best one to keep it.”_

_He traces the lines, the arcs, the symbols, and angles with his fingertips. He skims over the words, looking over the characters. The flame technique, it was here!_

_And suddenly, he feels sick. He removes his hand from her back._

_Her father had likely done this without her consent, had likely spent months etching it into his daughter’s back, perhaps taking advantage of her nature to not have her siblings suffer. And she let him, certainly not completely willing to be burdened with it._

_How long had this taken? Had Enjolras been there while this was going on? It was likely, since the research wasn’t complete until her father was near death._

_“Eponine…” he murmurs, gentleness disguising the fading shock and disgust._

_“It’s all right,” she says, sounding ashamed. “It…it doesn’t hurt anymore.”_

“If you need something, go ahead and help yourself,” he says to her before going to bed. “Don’t be afraid to wake me if you must.”

“Yes, sir,” she replies, unfolding the blankets.

A pause.

“Good night, Colonel.”

He gives a curt nod before heading into the hallway. “Good night, Lieutenant.”

Thenardier spends the night staring at the ceiling.

Closing her eyes only causes the darkness to follow her. And with Prouvaire’s death so recent, she doesn’t want it to consume her.

She should be with Azelma and her niece, provide them what little comfort she can. Holding her sister and crying together, trying to distract little Mirielle through reading or playing with dolls.

But she can’t bring herself to do that. What she is, could bring a reminder of what lead to her brother-in-law’s death and she can’t be upsetting her sister more. She’s knows Gavroche is with her at least, so at least she’s not alone.

“ _You’re her sister first, a soldier second_ ,” Enjolras had told her earlier that day in an effort to have her stay with Azelma. “ _I’ll be fine_.”

“ _She has Gavroche, you have no one_ ,” she countered.

He had taken a deep breath and shaken his head. He looked as if he was going to make another argument, then decided against it. “ _Alright._ ”

She sits up at the sound of a cry from the other room, followed by something metallic hitting the wall. She picks up her pistol from its resting place on the coffee table and runs to Enjolras’ bedroom, ready to fire.

Silence.

She flicks on the light, alert.

Enjolras sits on the floor at the foot of the bed, shaking, staring at a dent in the wall across from him, his silver pocketwatch sitting on the floor below it. His blond curls are beyond their normal disarray, tears staining his cheeks.

He releases an uneven breath, chest heaving. “I’m all right, Thenardier. Go back to sleep.”

“You are not, sir,” she says, lowering her weapon and setting it on the dresser by the door. She walks over and kneels beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder as he buries his face in his hands.

_“They were only children, Thenardier, children!” he says, sitting at the foot of his cot, the night desert air still reeking of burning flesh. “They are innocent in this conflict!”_

_It was the first night since the issue of Executive Order of 3066, involving the extermination of the people of Ishval, and reports of bringing in State Alchemists within the week. Given Enjolras was one of the few there already, his superiors had taken advantage of that and assigned to him the elimination of a set of blocks by the day’s end._

_“I’m on the wrong side. We all are,” he continues. “I should have listened when you, Thenardier, when you said I would be better off combatting the injustice from the outside.”_

_Prouvaire looks on from his side of the tent while Thenardier goes to pour Enjolras some tea. Thenardier notices Prouvaire giving her a concerned expression. He, too, had taken part in this particular attack, watching as flames engulfed buildings while he was sent in to finish the citizens off. She had only watched it unfold from her post._

_“Take this,” she tells Enjolras, who accepts the cup with a shaking hand, then goes to sitting on the ground across from him._

_“We’re in another sector tomorrow,” Prouvaire says, a look of defeat in his eyes. “Trying to cut them off from the outer edges and close in, if I understand the strategy.”_

_Enjolras shakes his head. “I want my carbine back. Using alchemy on these people…this is no longer war, this is genocide.”_

_“I would say steal someone else’s, but it’s likely our superiors will be watching for the flame attacks,” Prouvaire says with a sigh. “You could desert or change sides, and you’d be dead before you could make the choice which, with snipers such as Thenardier here.”_

_Enjolras glances toward Thenardier. “I would change sides if I could, but there’s someone I need to look out for.”_

_“You aren’t bound to that,” she says._

_“I keep my word,” he states, holding the cup tightly with both hands, raising his head. “And I’ll keep this one, too, though it may be a long road: I will see to it, if I survive, these wrongs made right. While I do not believe in reversing what we’ve done or will do by the end of this, I do believe we can, at the very least, make amends.”_

_“I’m behind you, chief,” Prouvaire nods in agreement, then glances at Thenardier. “What say you?”_

Enjolras lifts his head and takes a deep, wavering breath. “I still see the blood, sometimes.”

“Me, too,” she replies, rubbing his shoulder.

“I…I see those horrified faces before the flames alight, then how it blends with the pools of blood,” he continues, trembling. “Prouvaire, I see him in that phone booth, with all that blood and—” He cuts himself off, his breaths coming in gasps.

“Easy, easy…Deep breaths…” she says, shifting around so she meets his gaze. “Focus on me.”

He gives a curt not, stone-blue eyes staring into her own.

It takes a few minutes to get his breathing back to normal, to calm him down. But she’s still worried, after the fact.

The past couple of nights…had he gone through a similar attack? She wouldn’t be surprised if he had, and it would be like him not to talk about it unless he felt it necessary.

“Would you like me to get you some tea?” she asks, once she thinks it safe to leave him for a few moments. She stands up.

“Thank you, but no,” he replies, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry for waking you. I should be fine now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, but thank you.”

She turns to head back into the living room, only to feel a pull on her sleeve. She looks down her arm, his hand gently grasping his wrist. She searches his eyes for a moment. Pain, anguish, something blended well with the grief behind them. And she wishes she could tear it all away, even if it only gave him a few seconds of peace.

“Please, stay.”

She reaches to brush his cheek with her fingertips. “Of course, sir.”


End file.
